Method and apparatus for teaching and learning reading

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for teaching and learning reading are disclosed. The apparatus is a group of universally connectable blocks and may include a primer having intelligible reading units composed of reading indicia. Each block has at least three faces, and each face of a given block the same reading indicia type. Each block has a color that corresponds to the reading indicia type. The primer&#39;s reading indicia are colored to correspond to the blocks bearing the same reading indicia type. The method comprises reading the primer, reading selected reading indicia in the primer, and locating blocks having the selected reading indicia. An intelligible reading unit comprised of the selected reading indicia in the primer is read and assembled from the blocks. Two blocks are selected, having the identified reading indicia, and connected. The color or selected indicia are viewed to determine whether the indicia form the selected intelligible reading unit.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/724,965, filed Dec. 1, 2003, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/675,073, filed Sep. 28, 2003, which isnow U.S. Pat. No. 6,685,477.

This invention relates to methods for teaching pre-emergent and emergentreaders, and, in particular, an apparatus for accomplishing these tasks.

BACKGROUND

There are various known devices for teaching pre-emergent and emergentreaders alphabet and phoneme awareness, recognition of spelling patternsand initial consonant sounds, word building, and sentence construction.However, as students progress in skill level, these devices do notprovide a consistent or progressively challenging approach throughoutthe process of teaching reading and spelling, nor are they suitable forteaching such readers via several different methods. Different peoplelearn in different ways, e.g., seeing, doing, touching (manipulating).

Known devices include kits of substantially two-dimensional pieces whichoffer different colors and different sizes of parts that fit togetherand bear letters, word parts or words to reinforce reading and spellingskills, but they do not offer the opportunity to simultaneously mix andmatch different, but similar, information. That is, because the piecesare flat, each such piece provides only one visible piece of readinginformation. For example, alphabet pieces will have only one letter ofthe alphabet visible. There are also kits of three-dimensional piecesshaped like blocks and bearing letters, word parts or words to reinforcereading and spelling skills, which may be placed next to each other, butwhich do not connect together. Without connection, the blocks are easilydisturbed by beginning readers who lack good small motor skills. Thus,the known three-dimensional pieces lack tactile connections. Also knownare three-dimensional, snap-fit blocks used to teach math skills. Theseblocks, however, do not teach reading skills and carry only one kind ofmath indicia on any given block.

Consequently, a need exists for a method for teaching reading, spelling,and grammar/usage using an apparatus which can be used to facilitatedifferent learning methods, progressively challenge students as theyimprove their skills, and permit interlocking of letters, word parts orwords to teach reading, spelling, and grammar/usage.

In addition, this method and apparatus can be used in connection withone or more primers in teaching and reinforcing reading skills.

SUMMARY

Kits including a variety of three-dimensional, removably connectablecolor-coded blocks are described. Each kit can be used for a differentstep or level in learning to read, from the initial steps of learningthe difference between vowels and consonants and matching letter soundsto pictures, to building at first shorter and then longer words, tofinally constructing sentences. The users can choose the order ofteaching to fit their basal program. The blocks include “readingindicia” or units of reading information on multiple sides, e.g.,pictures, letters, phonemes, word parts, or words. In a preferredembodiment, the various information is pre-applied to the blocks so thatthe information is readable with the male portion of the snap orientedto the user's right. This facilitates the left-to-right reading practiceof the English language. Additional information is provided to the userby varying the color of the blocks according to the type of informationdisplayed (e.g., vowel and consonant blocks are different colors in oneof the kits). The length of the blocks also varies according to theinformation conveyed. For example, blocks with a single letter aresmaller in length than blocks with multiple letters. The blocks all havethe same cross-sectional size, so that when two or more blocks areconnected, their indicia-bearing faces are co-planar. Blank blocks arealso included for use as “unknown” letters in sequencing activities, asletters or words that the user would like to add to the set, and asreplacement blocks that can be written on with either a permanent ordry-erase marker.

Each block has systematic, developmentally appropriate information. Toencourage recognition of an alliterative pattern, for example, certainblocks have different, but related, indicia or information on each side.For instance, a block could have both uppercase and lowercase forms ofthe same letter. By combining two or more blocks so that selectedindicia appear on adjoining faces, an “intelligible reading unit”, suchas a word or sentence, is formed.

An intelligible reading unit results from the combination of two or morereading indicia to form a unit capable of being understood. Readingindicia include vowels, consonants, pictures, initial consonants, rimes,“magic” e's, consonant combinations, vowel combinations, affixes, rootwords, nouns, noun endings, pronouns, verbs, verb endings, adjectives,adjective endings, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections,and punctuation marks.

Each kit is designed to develop specific types of reading or phonicsskills and thus each kit provides different types of information.However, all the kits have certain elements in common. The blockssatisfy the needs of visual, aural, and tactile (kinesthetic) learningstyles. For instance, the blocks are designed to be removably fixedtogether, so that inadvertent manipulation will not change the teacheror student-selected order of the blocks. Preferably, the blockconnection occurs in a single direction or orientation, thus reinforcingthe directionality of reading that is necessary to eventually developgood reading skills. Also, each kit is used to build an intelligiblereading unit including reading indicia from at least two differentblocks (sub-parts), each of which is found on color-coded blocks. Forinstance, one kit can be used to assemble a picture/letter unitincluding a block with pictures and a block carrying the first or lastletter of the word naming that picture. Because the picture blocks andthe letter blocks are different colors, the user can be taught toassociate the different colors with different types of information(i.e., red means vowels, blue means consonants), and eventually torecognize a particular type of information (e.g., vowels) without thetriggering color association. Thus, the color of a block in any kit willsuggest the type of reading indicia carried on its sides. Additionally,with color-coded blocks, the teacher can confirm from a distance that aparticular student's assembly at least appears to be correct. In oneembodiment, the blocks are predrilled so they may be threaded as if theywere beads on a string.

In another form, a method of teaching and learning reading using a groupof such universally connectable, three-dimensional, color-coded blocksis described in connection with a primer having intelligible readingunits composed of reading indicia. Each block in the group has at leastthree faces, with each face bearing a type of reading indicia. The typeof reading indicia is the same on all faces of a given block. Each blockhas a color, with the color assigned particularly to the type of readingindicia on the faces. At least one of the reading indicia in the primeris colored to correspond to the color of the blocks bearing the sametype of reading indicia. The method involves: reading the primer;selecting an intelligible reading unit from the primer; identifying thereading indicia comprising the selected intelligible reading unit;selecting a first and a second block from the group of universallyconnectable blocks having the identified reading indicia; connecting thefirst block and second blocks so that the connected blocks arehorizontally adjacent and the selected indicia-bearing faces of eachblock are visible from the same direction; and viewing the color orselected indicia of said connected blocks to determine whether saidindicia appear together to form the selected intelligible reading unit.

Although the invention is described in terms of the Roman alphabet andEnglish words, the invention could just as easily be adapted to teachreading with other alphabets and other languages.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of blocks and a slot for removablyreceiving an activity flipbook (not seen) in a tray.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the blocks, book and tray of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 shows the assembly of the blocks.

FIGS. 4 and 5 are perspective views of four blocks from the alphabet andphonemic awareness kit.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of two blocks from the short vowel wordfamilies kit.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of three blocks from the phonics wordbuilding kit.

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of eleven blocks from the advanced phonicsword building kit.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view of three blocks from theprefixes-suffixes-root word building kit.

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of thirteen blocks from the sentenceconstruction kit.

FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a tray holding blocks.

FIGS. 12-20 show selected pages of primers used in connection with theblocks.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A method of teaching reading using a series of kits of blocks, eachcontaining reading indicia or units of reading information is disclosed.Each kit teaches one or more reading skills. Although the kits each havesome teaching value, that value is maximized by using all of the kits atthe appropriate stages of a student's progress in learning to read.Additional value resides in combining the kits of blocks with primers asdescribed hereinafter.

As seen in FIGS. 1 and 2, the blocks may be placed on a tray 1 havingguides or channels 3 for receivably holding the blocks. The channel islarge enough to hold two or more blocks so that they are side-by-side.The channel walls 3 a, 3 b, and 3 c prevent the blocks from beinginadvertently moved from the tray by the user. The tray 1 also has aslot 5 for receivably holding a flipbook 7. The tray controls randommovement of the blocks by providing these channels to hold the blocks inplace. The tray also encourages focus on particular letters and blocksby screening out the sides not being used on each block. The channels ofthe tray combined with the cubes themselves also promote theleft-to-right directionality of reading the English language (and othersimilar languages) because the reading indicia would be upside down, aswell as backwards, if the cubes were placed on the tray in aright-to-left direction. This tray is an important improvement over theprior art tiles. With the prior art tiles, teachers complain that wordsare unintentionally formed and scrambled because their letter tiles donot stay in place. Of course, for languages in which reading indicia areread right-to-left, such as Hebrew, the tray and cubes would be designedso as to promote the right-to-left directionality of reading. Likewise,for languages such as Chinese and Japanese, the channels of the tray andthe blocks' reading indicia would be designed to promote the verticaldirectionality of reading.

The flipbook 7 can provide activities to reinforce many of the methodsused herein to teach reading, spelling, and grammar/usage. The flipbookpreferably has color-coded icons keyed to the blocks of the apparatus,allowing students to use the flipbooks for independent practice. Each ofthe blocks are removably connectable to each other (“universallyconnectable”). The means for removably connecting the blocks may be byfrictionally engaging a male end of one block to a female end of anotherblock, by hook-and-loop, by reusable adhesive, by mechanicallyinterlocking a knob and slot, or by other similar means.

Alphabet and Phonemic Awareness Kit

As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the alphabet and phonemic awareness kit hastwo types of blocks, alphabet blocks 10, 20 and picture blocks 30, 40.Each of the alphabet blocks feature uppercase and lowercase versions ofa particular letter, either consonants or vowels. Thus, block 10 showsan uppercase “A” 12 and a lowercase “a” 14. Block 20 shows an uppercase“B” 22 and a lowercase “b” 24. The consonant blocks are one color 16(such as blue), while the vowel blocks are a different color 26 (such asred).

Each of the picture blocks in this kit generally has four differentpictures on the sides. The pictures are selected so that the descriptiveword for each picture starts with the same letter. Thus, picture block30 shows an apple 32 and an ant 34. Picture block 40 shows a book 42 anda bicycle 44. An exception to this rule may be made for certain letters.For instance, the picture blocks for Y and Z each have only twopictures. Likewise, the picture blocks bearing pictures described bywords beginning with short vowel sounds (“vowel picture blocks”) eachhave three pictures, with the fourth side left blank for use by teacherswho want to teach long vowel sounds by suggesting pictures such as “ape”for “long a”.

The picture blocks bearing pictures described by words starting withconsonants (“consonant picture blocks”) have a color 36 which is similarbut not identical to the color of consonant blocks. The vowel pictureblocks have a color 46 which is similar but not identical to the colorof the vowel blocks. Thus, if the vowel blocks are red, the vowelpicture blocks are desirably pink. Likewise, if the consonant blocks aredark blue, the consonant picture blocks are desirably light blue.

The consonant blocks are selected from the uppercase and lowercaseconsonants B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z.The vowel blocks are selected from the uppercase and lowercase vowels A,E, I, O, U and optionally Y. An example of the pictures found on aconsonant picture block for the letter B are icons or pictures of aball, banana, bicycle, and book. Likewise, the vowel picture block forthe letter A has icons for ant, apple, and ax.

The blocks, as is true for all blocks described herein, are designed tobe removably fixed together. Thus, each block has a male part and afemale part. As can be seen in FIG. 4, vowel block 10 has a male part 17and a female part 18; vowel picture block 30 has a male part 37 and afemale part 38. When the blocks are oriented so that all the letters orpictures are oriented in the same direction (i.e., so they are readableand recognizable), the male part is always on the same end (e.g., on theright) and the female part is always on the opposite (or left) end.Thus, the male part 17 of the vowel block 10 will snap fit into thefemale end 37 of the vowel picture block 30, removably fixing the blockstogether.

The blocks each have a plurality of faces, with each face orientedperpendicularly to two other faces. Each face is sufficiently largeenough to bear a reading indicium that is easily recognizable. When twoor more blocks are connected together, the upper faces on the blocks areco-planar.

An example of the illustrations found on a complete set of pictureblocks for each of the letters of the English alphabet follows. Pictureblocks Letters Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 A ant apple ax B ball bananabicycle book C camel cat cow cup D dice dog doll duck E elephant elbowenvelope F feet fish fox frog G grapes girl goat gorilla H hand hathorse house I igloo inchworm Indian chief J jar jeep jet jump rope Kkangaroo key king kite L lamp leaf light bulb lion M milk monkey moonmouse N necklace nest needle nose O octopus ostrich ox P paperclip pigpumpkin pencil Q queen question mark quarter quilt R rabbit ring roserowboat S saw seal sock sun T table television tiger turtle U umbrellaup under V valentine van violin vacuum W wagon watch well wig X exitsign xylophone x-ray xylophone Y yarn yo-yo yarn yo-yo Z zebra zipperzoo zeroExamples of Use of the Alphabet and Phonemic Awareness Kit

The inventive alphabet and phonemic awareness kit provides students withmotivating, hands-on experiences as they explore the alphabetic codesystem of the English language. Students who may be reluctant to dopencil and paper exercises especially may be encouraged to think aboutletters and sounds with these tactile, colorful blocks through ahands-on experience.

The alphabet and phonemic awareness kit is particularly effective toinstruct students in phonemic awareness, that is, to distinguish thesounds that make up spoken language. Research has shown that developingthis ability is considered a crucial step toward helping students unlockthe code of written text and is a predictor of later reading success.The alphabet and phonemic awareness kit can be used in activities tohelp students examine the sounds of words in a logical progression,including: analyzing and synthesizing syllables; isolating phonemes atthe beginning, middle, and end of words; blending phonemes; segmentingphonemes; and manipulating phonemes within a word. Students can thenprogress to using the alphabet blocks for letter identification,alphabetical order, and matching sounds to symbols.

EXAMPLE 1 Isolating Initial Sounds

This exercise is used to teach a student to isolate the first sound froma word beginning with an initial consonant, using the consonant pictureblocks in finger play and other activities.

First, a consonant picture block is selected and given to the student.Then, the student is instructed to place the selected block on his orher left index finger, much like a finger puppet. The student andteacher rotate the block and say the names of the pictures on the blocktogether. The student and teacher then discuss the identicalness of theinitial sound for each picture. To reinforce the initial sound, thenames of the pictures are repeated, with emphasis placed on the phoneme.For instance, for the B picture block, the teacher and student wouldpronounce the letter “B” and then pronounce the words describing thepictures beginning with b.

Once the teacher is satisfied with the recitation, the teacher mayinstruct the student to remove the first consonant block and place asecond consonant picture block on the left index finger. This step ispreferably repeated for five consonants. When familiarity with theselected five consonants is sufficient, the teacher may then have thestudent place all five consonant picture blocks on the fingers of theleft hand, and sing a reinforcing song, with the B picture block verse.

With each mention of a different picture, the student would turn therelevant consonant picture block so as to see the mentioned picture.Reinforcing songs would follow for each of the five blocks.

The teacher can provide additional reinforcement of the phoneme bytelling little stories in which one word is not completed, and only theinitial phoneme is pronounced. The student can then look at his or hercollection of picture blocks, identify the block featuring the selectedphoneme, and choose the picture from that block which best fits thecontext of the story. For instance, if the teacher says “That clown iswearing a curly/w/______,” the student would sort through the pictureblocks until identifying the picture block having pictures starting with“w.” (When a letter is pronounced and not named, it appears betweenslash marks.) The student would then sort through the pictures (forinstance, wagon, watch, well, and wig) and choose “wig” as best fittingthe context of the story.

A student can be taught to associate the same initial consonant withobjects not pictured on the block, including grocery items, picturesfrom old magazines and catalogues, and the names of persons.

A student can learn to sort the blocks on the basis of the initialconsonant. For instance, the student could be provided with a set ofblocks, in which the initial consonants are a subset of all consonantsand there are one or more blocks having a selected initial consonant.Preferably, the student receives a set of about 20 consonant pictureblocks having 4 to 6 phonemes represented. The student is then guided insorting the blocks by the initial consonant held in common, and buildinga tower from each type. (e.g., all the “B” consonant blocks stackedvertically, all the “C” consonant blocks stacked vertically, etc.).

When students are ready to match letters with initial sounds, they maybe rewarded with an opportunity to play a game similar to “Go Fish.”Each of a group of two to four students receives seven consonant pictureblocks, selected from a group of four sets of consonant blocks. That is,the “deck” consists of four sets of 21 consonants.

The first player requests a particular consonant picture block fromanother player. If the other player has the block, the other player mustturn it over to the first player, who continues to request blocks fromany of the other players until the respondent does not have therequested block. At this point, the first player draws another pictureblock. If the drawn block matches the first player's request, the turncontinues. Otherwise, the turn passes to the next student. When anyplayer has four blocks starting with the same initial consonant, thatplayer connects them together and places them in view of the others.Once all the blocks are matched, the game is over. The player with themost matches wins the game.

The exercises in this Example may be similarly practiced with initialvowel picture blocks, with the teacher placing an emphasis on the factthat vowels are vocalized with open mouth. This Example may likewise bepracticed with a plurality of students or with a different number ofconsonants or vowels.

EXAMPLE 2 Alphabet Naming and Sequencing

This example is used to teach a student to match the names of letterswith the letter symbols, initially with uppercase letters only (with thelowercase letters on the blocks optionally masked), then with lowercaseletters only (with the uppercase letters masked), and finally with bothuppercase and lowercase letters. In these exercises, students do drillwork in which they describe the shape of letters; and match a selectedalphabet block with letters from other sources, such as index cards eachbearing a single letter, written versions of students' names, or logosfor popular brand names. As they acquire proficiency, the students willmatch a plurality of letters simultaneously. Throughout this activity orseries of activities, the teacher may remind the students thatred-colored blocks are vowel blocks and blue-colored blocks areconsonant blocks.

Further activities have students sequence the uppercase and lowercaseletters in alphabetical order in an interlocked “train.” Then sectionsof the alphabet are removed to provide practice in sequencing. Four orfive blocks are interlocked, all of them in alphabetical order exceptone of them is a blank block. Students must replace the blank with thecorrect letter.

EXAMPLE 3 Matching Initial Sound of Picture Block to Alphabet Block

In this exercise, students match the sound of the initial letter for theword describing an image on a picture block to the appropriate alphabetblock, snap-fitting them together. The snap-fitted blocks can then bereadily checked by the teacher to confirm that the students grasp theconcept. This snap-fitting feature also ensures that the joining ofblocks is deliberate manipulation, not incidental or random movements asfound with other letter systems such as tiles.

EXAMPLE 4 Isolating Terminal Sounds

As with initial sounds, a student may be taught to isolate the sound ofthe last letter from a word describing an image on a picture block byusing the picture blocks in finger play and other activities.

EXAMPLE 5 Matching Terminal Sound of Picture Block to Alphabet Block

As with initial sounds, a student can match the sound of the last letterfor the word describing an image on a picture block to an appropriatealphabet block. This reinforces alphabet recognition, even in thecontext of ending sounds.

Short Vowel Word Families Kit

The short vowel word families kit has two types of blocks, initialconsonant blocks and short vowel word or rime blocks. Rimes may also bereferred to as phonograms. An initial consonant block 50 and a shortvowel word block 60 are shown in FIG. 6. Users of this kit build on theskills acquired from using the alphabet and phonemic awareness kit.

The initial consonant blocks 50 feature different consonants 52, 54 ontheir four sides (including the combination “qu”) and are one color 56,preferably the same color as that selected for the consonant blocks 20in the alphabet and phonemic awareness kit. As with all blocks, theinitial consonant blocks have a female end 58 and an opposite, male end57. In one embodiment, the lettering on the blocks is as follows: Side 1Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 Block 1 b c d f Block 2 g h j l Block 3 m n p quBlock 4 r s t w Block 5 y m l t Block 6 r s b d Block 7 k v x z

The short vowel phonogram blocks 60 (also now known by teachers andreading specialists as “rimes”) are a color 66, which is different fromthe color of the initial consonant blocks and feature common two-lettercombinations of vowels and terminal consonants 62, 64, such as “ad”,“am”, and “ed.” In the preferred embodiment, the same two-lettercombination is displayed on four faces of block 60 and a combination offour different initial consonants is featured on any selected initialconsonant block 50. Examples of preferred rimes for the short vowelphonogram blocks are ad, am, an, ap, at, ed, en, et, in, it, ig, ot, og,op, up, ut, and un. The short vowel rime blocks, which carry moreinformation on each side, are longer than the consonant blocks. Theshort vowel rime blocks also have a female end 68 and an opposite, maleend 67.

Examples of Use of the Short Vowel Word Families Kit

The inventive short vowel word families kit provides students withmotivating, hands-on experiences as they explore the alphabetic codesystem of the language and how to encode and decode new words anddiscover regular sound and spelling patterns among words with the sameending letters. Students who may be reluctant to do pencil and paperexercises especially may be encouraged to encode and decode new andfamiliar words and sort them into spelling patterns using these tactile,colorful blocks.

With the short vowel word families kit, students first explore theconcept of rhyme. Then they manipulate short vowel patterns to createand decode many new words by connecting initial consonant blocks to rimeblocks, creating a huge number of consonant-vowel-consonant words. Theyalso begin to differentiate real words from nonsense words.

EXAMPLE 6 Exploring Word Families with the Blocks

A student combines one short vowel word block with the consonant blocksto create new words, repeating the combining step for other short vowelword blocks. The student learns to decode the new words by linking themto the spelling patterns of familiar words. Thus, a student mayrecognize the word “cat” and decode the word “hat” by analogy. Becauseeach consonant block in this kit has a variety of consonants, a varietyof real and nonsense words will be easily assembled. Taking the “at”short vowel as an example, a student could combine the consonant block50 (bearing, for example, r, s, t and w), and create the familiar wordsrat and sat, and the less familiar word tat and the nonsense word wat,which reinforce the pronunciation of—at family words even though theyare unfamiliar or nonsense words. The ease of creatingconsonant-vowel-consonant combinations will encourage students to createand study all sorts of combinations. The interlocking feature of theblocks can help guide pronunciation of each new word as students areencouraged to pronounce the sound(s) on each block as they put themtogether; /s/ /at/, /s/ /at/, /sat/. By using two or more short vowelrime blocks in combination with the consonant blocks, students learn tosort by word families, by initial and final consonants as well asrecognize short vowel sounds in the consonant-vowel-consonant patterns.

EXAMPLE 7 Exploring Word Families with the Short Vowel Word Families Kitand the Alphabet and Phonemic Awareness Kit

The important practice of rhyming found in the short vowel word familieskit is started in the alphabet and phonemic awareness kit. Byidentifying, matching and interlocking rhyming picture blocks from thealphabet and phonemic awareness kit, such as blocks showing a house andmouse or wig and pig, students focus on the auditory cues rather thanvisual cues to identify rhyming patterns. This provides an additionalmethod of learning rhyming patterns. The interlocking feature provides adeliberate sorting mechanism rather than an incidental or haphazardmovement of tiles into columns.

Other games and lessons teaching students using the alphabet andphonemic awareness kit and the short vowel word families kit, alone orin combination with published rhyming literature, will be readilyapparent to those of skill in the art.

Phonics Word-Building Kit

The phonics word-building kit builds on the skills learned from usingthe short vowel word families kit. This kit has six types of blocks:consonant blocks; vowel blocks; “magic” e blocks; consonant combinationblocks (including initial blends, final blends, word endings, anddigraphs); vowel combination blocks (including digraphs, r-controlledvowels, and diphthongs); and two-to-four letter phonogram (or rime)blocks, which are shown in FIGS. 7 and 8.

As seen in FIGS. 7 and 8, the consonant blocks 70 feature consonants 72,74 on their four sides (including the combination “qu”) and are onecolor 76, preferably the same color (for instance, blue) as thatselected for the consonant blocks 20 in the alphabet and phonemicawareness kit. The consonant blocks have a female end 78 and anopposite, male end 77.

As seen in FIGS. 7 and 8, the vowel blocks 80 feature various vowels 82,84 and are a color 86, which is different in color from the consonantblocks, and preferably the same color as that selected for the vowelblocks (for instance, red) in the alphabet and phonemic awareness kit.The vowel blocks have a female end 88 and an opposite, male end 87.

The “magic” e blocks 90 are a third color 96 (preferably white) andfeature the letter e on the four sides, including sides 92, 94 shown inFIGS. 7 and 8. The “magic” e vowel blocks have a female end 98 and anopposite, male end 97. (The letter e can also be found on the vowelblocks for use when it is not silent.)

As seen in FIG. 8, the consonant combination blocks 100, 110, 120, 130feature two or more consonants on each of their four sides and are onecolor 116, preferably a color related to, but different from, those usedin the phonics word-building kit. In one embodiment, the consonantcombination blocks are green.

The vowel combination blocks 140, 150, 160 feature two vowels on each oftheir four sides and are a color 141, preferably a color related to, butdifferent from, those used in the phonics word-building kit. In oneembodiment, the vowel combination blocks are violet.

The advanced rime blocks 170 feature multi-letter (usually two-fourletters) word endings that use a commonly used spelling andpronunciation pattern, and are a color 176, preferably the same as thatused for the two letter rime blocks from the short vowel word familieskit (for instance, yellow).

Generally, the consonant combination blocks and the vowel combinationblocks are longer than the vowel and consonant blocks 80, 70. Theadvanced rime blocks are somewhat longer than the consonant combinationblocks and the vowel combination blocks, with the longer rimes beingplaced on longer blocks.

Examples of Use of the Phonics Word-Building Kit

The phonics word-building kit provides students with motivating,hands-on experiences as they learn how to form and identify short-voweland long-vowel sounds and patterns. Students learn to construct wordsusing these vowel patterns and become familiar with various spellingconventions, including consonant-vowel-consonant pattern and theconsonant-vowel-consonant-e pattern, using the “magic” e to transform ashort vowel sound into a long vowel sound.

EXAMPLE 8 Learning to Manipulate Consonant and Vowel Blocks to FormWords with the Short a Vowel Sound

The student is provided with the consonant blocks h, 1, p, s (twoblocks), and the vowel block a. The student and teacher may review theshort a vowel sound. The student is then asked to form the followingwords from the blocks in the following order: pal, lap, sap, ask, sash,lass, pass, slap, slash, splash. After each word is formed and beforethe next word is formed, the student and/or teacher writes down theword. Then, the short a vowel sound is again discussed. Additional shorta words may be formed as necessary or desired.

Other examples relating to this and other short vowel sounds using thephonics word-building kit will be readily apparent to those of skill inthe art.

EXAMPLE 9 The “Magic” e

Once a student has grasped the short vowel sound, the student may beintroduced to the long vowel sound by using the “magic” e block. The“magic” e block turns certain short vowel words into long vowel words.The student can learn this by manipulating the consonant and vowelblocks to transform consonant-short vowel-consonant words intoconsonant-long vowel-consonant-‘e’ words by simply adding the “magic” eblock. Examples of this include: rat to rate, fat to fate, Sam to same,pet to Pete, sit to site, tot to tote, cut to cute, and hug to huge.Students may be introduced to this concept one vowel at a time. Asanother exercise, students can use the word pairs in sentences, such as:“The rat ran at a fast rate,” or, “The fat cookie met its fate whenBilly ate it.”

Other examples relating to long vowel sounds using the “magic” e blockfrom the phonics word-building kit will be readily apparent to those ofskill in the art.

Advanced Sections of the Phonics Word-Building Kit

The advanced section of the phonics word-building kit builds on theskills learned from using the vowel, consonant, and “magic” e blocks.The blocks in this section are to be used with the phonics word-buildingkit, after separate study of the blocks featuring consonant combinationsand vowel combinations as well as an advanced rime block type, examplesof which are illustrated in FIG. 8.

The consonant combination blocks feature consonant combinations of fourtypes: initial blends 100, final blends 110, consonant digraphs 120, andword endings 130. Blends are combinations of letters forming a mergedsound. Examples of initial blends are sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, sw,bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl, br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, and tr. Examples offinal blends are st, nd, nk, pt, and mp. Digraphs are a pair of lettersrepresenting a single speech sound, such as the wh in where or the ea inbeat. Consonant digraph examples are sh, ch, ph, wh, kn, and gn. Wordending examples are ng, ck, tch, and dge. The initial blend blocks 100have a female end 108 and an opposite, male end 107. The final blendblocks 110 have a female end 118 and an opposite, male end 117. Theconsonant digraph blocks 120 have a female end 128 and an opposite, maleend 127. The word ending blocks 130 have a female end 138 and anopposite, male end 137.

Preferably, the consonant combinations are different on each of the foursides of any selected block, but each combination on a block has atleast one thing in common with the other three combinations, namely, thetype of combination (initial blend, final blend, consonant digraph, orword ending). For initial blends and consonant digraphs, thecombinations on a given block preferably have a consonant in common.Thus, for example, a block could have sk, sl, sc and sm, which are allinitial blends and all start with the letter s.

An example of preferred combinations of initial blend consonant blocks100 follows. Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 Block 1 sc sk sl sm Block 2 snsp st sw Block 3 sc sp sl sw Block 4 sn sk st sm Block 5 bl cl fl glBlock 6 pl sl bl cl Block 7 fl gl bl cl Block 8 pl sl fl bl Block 9 brcr dr fr Block 10 gr pr tr br Block 11 cr dr fr gr Block 12 pr tr br dr

An example of preferred combinations of final blend blocks 110 follows.Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 Block 13 st nd nk pt Block 14 nd mp st ndBlock 15 nk pt nd mp

An example of preferred combinations of consonant digraph blocks 120follows. Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 Block 16 sh ch th ph Block 17 sh thch wh Block 18 kn gn kn gn

An example of a preferred word ending block 130 follows. Side 1 Side 2Side 3 Side 4 Block 19 ng ck tch dge

The vowel combination blocks 140, 150, 160 feature vowel combinations ofthree types: digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels. The voweldigraph blocks 140 have a female end 148 and an opposite, male end 147.A diphthong is a complex speech sound or glide that begins with onevowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable asin the oi in boil. The vowel diphthong blocks 150 have a female end 158and an opposite, male end 157. The r-controlled vowel blocks 160 have afemale end 168 and an opposite, male end 167. Examples of digraphs areai, ay, ea, ee, oa, oo, ie, and ue. Examples of diphthongs are au, aw,ew, oi, ou, and oy. Examples of r-controlled vowels include er, ir, ar,ur, and or. Preferably, the same vowel combination appears on all fourfaces for any selected block.

The advanced rime blocks 170 have a female end 178 and an opposite, maleend 177. Examples of preferred advanced rime combinations are ad, am,an, ap, at, ed, en, et, ig, in, ip, it, og, op, ot, ob, ug, un, up, ut,ace, ack, ade, age, ail, ain, air, ake, ale, all, ame, amp, and, ane,ang, ank ape, are, ark art, ash, ast, ate, ave, awn, aze, eak, eal, eam,ean, ear, eat, eck, eed, eek, eel, een, eep, eer, elt, eet, ell, end,ent, ess, est, ice, ick, ide, ies, ift, ike, ile, ill, ime, ind, ine,ing, ink, int, ipe, ite, ive, oat, ock, oil, oke, old, ome, one, ong,ook, ool, oom, oon, oop, oot, ope, ore, orn, ose, oss, out, ove, own,uff, ump, ung, unk, ush, ust, ute, ump, ould, ight, and ound. It will benoted that the two-letter rimes of rime blocks 60 are repeated in theadvanced rime blocks 170. Unlike the earlier two-letter rime blocks, inthe preferred embodiment of the advanced rime blocks, the same rime doesnot appear on all four faces for any selected block, but rather, fourdifferent rimes are featured on any selected block.

An example of preferred combinations of advanced rime blocks follows.Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4 Block 1 ad am an ap Block 2 at ed en etBlock 3 ig in ip it Block 4 og op ot ob Block 5 ug un up ut Block 6 aceack ade age Block 7 ail ain air ake Block 8 ale all ame amp Block 9 andane ang ank Block 10 ape are ark art Block 11 ash ast ate ave Block 12awn aze eak eal Block 13 eam ean ear eat Block 14 eck eed eek elt Block15 een eep eer elt Block 16 eet ell end ent Block 17 ess est ice ickBlock 18 ide ies ift ike Block 19 ile ill ime ind Block 20 ine ing inkint Block 21 ipe ite ive oat Block 22 ock oil oke old Block 23 ome oneong ook Block 24 ool oom oon oop Block 25 oot ope ore orn Block 26 oseoss out ove Block 27 own uff ump ung Block 28 unk ush ust ute Block 29ump ould ight oundExamples of Use of the Advanced Phonics Word-Building Kit

The advanced section of the phonics word-building kit, in combinationwith the preceding kits, is used to build reading skills relating to thesounds produced by combining two consonants or two vowels, and bycombining more complicated combinations.

EXAMPLE 10

By snap-fitting two consonant blocks together, the idea of mergedsounds, such as sk and other consonant blends, can be taught. Twoconsonant blocks that will blend together, such as an s block and a kblock, can be stirred together in a paint jar by the teacher as a visualaid to illustrate blending or mixing the sounds together, just as twocolors can be blended to form a new color. The two blocks can then besnap-fit together, and the resulting consonant combination can beverbalized. The connected blocks can be shown to the students as avisual reminder that the blended letters and sound are used together inthe word.

It is preferred that the students first learn about the initialconsonant blends in groups having a common first letter (“initialblends”). For instance, the “s blends” (sp, sk, sl, st, and sw) are agood group to start with. Once the concept of a blend has beenintroduced, the consonant blend blocks can be substituted for theindividual consonant blocks. These can be joined with rime blocks andthe consonant and vowel blocks of earlier-described kits to complete theformation of words having an initial letter blend. The words can betranscribed by the students, providing an additional method of learningwords.

Similarly, the blends comprising a terminal sound of a word (“finalblends”) can be likewise taught using the paint mixing analogy.

Then, the concept of a digraph can be taught to the students—indicatingthat the blended consonants produce an entirely new sound, such as /sh/,/ch/, /th/, /wh/, and /ph/. Students should hear and then use theirdigraph blocks in combination with earlier-described blocks to formwords containing the digraph sounds.

The silent combinations /kn/ and /gn/ and the unusual spelling patternsusing /ng/, /ck/, /tch/, and /dge/ can be similarly taught. The vowelcombinations (digraphs, diphthongs, and r-controlled) can then betaught, using the blue consonant and green consonant combinations tohelp build words that use the various vowel combinations.

The students can then use the advanced rime blocks in combination withconsonant blocks and consonant combination blocks to learn and practicespelling words with common spelling patterns, much as the students didwith the vowel-consonant rime blocks described earlier, although thefocus now becomes long and other vowel sounds rather than short vowelfamilies.

A group of students can play a game like “Telephone” or “Gossip” bystarting with one short vowel-consonant rime block 170 and the consonantand consonant combination blocks 70, 100, 120 described earlier. Theshort-vowel-consonant rime block is passed through the students, witheach student changing the beginning sound to form a new word. When astudent cannot form a new word, then a new rime block is selected.

Other word study exercises using this kit will be readily apparent tothose of skill in the art.

Prefixes, Suffixes and Root Words Kit

The prefixes, suffixes and root words kit builds on the skills learnedfrom using the complete phonics word-building kit. This kit has fivetypes of blocks: affix blocks 180, 190 (including both prefixes andsuffixes), root word blocks 200 (Greek and Latin roots), English baseword blocks 210 and single vowel and consonant blocks for spellingchanges (not shown). Examples of these blocks are shown in FIG. 9. Asthe amount of information on the sides of the blocks increase, thelength of the blocks increase.

The affix blocks are of two types: prefix blocks 180 and suffix blocks190. The prefix blocks 180 feature commonly used prefixes on each oftheir four sides and are one color 186. The prefix blocks 180 have afemale end 188 and an opposite, male end 187.

The suffix blocks 190 feature commonly used suffixes and word endings oneach of their four sides and are a second color 196, preferably a colordifferent from, but related to, that used for the prefix blocks. Thus,if the prefix blocks were yellow, the suffix blocks could be orange. Thesuffix blocks 190 have a female end 198 and an opposite, male end 197.

Examples of preferred prefixes for the prefix blocks are: re, in, un,di, il, sub, ad, en, ex, de, ir, co, ab, a, im, ob, pre, mis, mid, con,sub, uni, bi, tri, non, com, tele, anti, pro, para, ante, over, mono,multi, dis, semi, per, trans, auto, deci, post, mega, under, super,micro, milli, centi, kilo, and inter.

Examples of preferred suffixes for the suffix blocks are: ize, or, al,en, ty, ly, li, y, s, es, er, ed, ent, ee, ing, ic, ify, ity, ant, ate,est, ish, ful, ist, ive, tude, ion, ous, logy, tion, nomy, ment, able,ible, less, ward, ence, sion, hood, ness, ance, and ure.

The English base word blocks 200 feature commonly used English basewords and are a third color 206. The English word blocks 200 have afemale end 208 and an opposite, male end 207. The Greek and Latin rootblocks 210 feature Greek and Latin root words and are a fourth color216, preferably a color different from, but related to, that used forthe English word blocks. Thus, if the English word blocks were green,the Greek and Latin root blocks could be light green. The Greek andLatin root blocks 210 have a female end 218 and an opposite, male end217.

Examples of preferred English words for the English word blocks are:like, kind, help, hug, bat, win, run, wash, stop, hop, pet, city, baby,play, back, act, cycle, fair, soft, pass, hunt, safe, sign, test, plan,warn, self, farm, work, home, look, state, spell, clean, treat, agree,order, care, store, line, date, light, force, build, float, place,create, carry, legal, angle, reason, comfort, friend, annual, wonder,brother, sister, develop, employ, month, enjoy, and south.

Examples of preferred Greek and Latin roots for the Greek and Latin rootblocks are: ped, bio, vis, alt, ver, cit, zoo, fus, not, port, duc,gram, geo, vent, ject, naut, cede, pend, scop, grat, sect, spec, form,cred, vers, vert, sens, dict, therm, rupt, photo, astro, meter, press,graph, metr, scrib, poli, tract, struct, aud, and phon.

The single letter vowel blocks preferably carry the vowels a, e, i, o,and u, and are similar in color to the vowel blocks of earlier-describedkits. The single letter consonant blocks carry the consonants t, n, d,r, g, p, m, and b and are similar in color to the consonant blocks ofearlier-described kits.

When students have acquired knowledge of the alphabetic principle andrecognize patterns across words (skills developed in previous kits),they are ready for word analysis to build vocabulary and spellingskills. This set allows users to practice adding prefixes and suffixesto root words and base words, and to learn spelling conventions foradding the affixes. Building and analyzing words in this way issometimes called “structural” or “morphemic analysis.” A morpheme is thesmallest unit of meaning in a language. For example, “cats” has twomorphemes, cat plus the plural s. In this example, the morpheme cat is afree morpheme and can stand alone, whereas s is a bound morpheme, whichneeds to be added to another morpheme to convey its meaning. Prefixesand suffixes are bound morphemes.

Examples of Use of the Prefixes, Suffixes and Root Words Kit

Students combine -s,-es,-ing, and -ed blocks with English root wordblocks. This allows them to learn appropriate and inappropriatecombinations, such as which suffixes work with verbs and which withnouns; for example, helps (not helpes), helping, or helped; or friends(not friendes), friended or friending. From this exercise, they willalso learn pronunciation rules, such as that washed is a single syllableword.

Students can also learn that the final e is dropped from words whencertain suffixes such as ing are combined with a verb that ends in e.Learning this rule is facilitated with spelling variations of wordsincluded on the same block; for instance place and plac; create andcreat, care and car, and store and stor are paired on their respectiveblocks. Learning spelling rules involving plurals of words that end witha consonant and a y such as baby and babies is also made possible withspelling variations on the blocks (baby and bab; city and cit; carry andcarr).

Students first combine suffixes with English base words, then prefixes.With the color coding of the blocks, they can easily see what is baseand what is affix, making applying the rules more understandable andconsistent. In these exercises they learn that not all combinations formreal words and they learn to generalize about the effect an affix has onthe meaning of a word by analogizing from the known effect in a knowncombination, to the effect in an unknown combination.

Being able to manipulate the blocks reinforces the idea of many wordsbeing made up of discernable parts with predictable meanings. Forinstance, students learn that adding the suffix er to a verb transformsthe verb into a noun with the meaning “someone or something that can[verb].” They learn that adding the suffix est to a noun forms anonsense word, but when added to an adjective, forms a comparativeadjective—just as when adding the suffix er to an adjective. In thisexercise, the consonant doubling rule is reviewed when the suffix er isadded to “stop.” The students learn the general rule that a consonant isdoubled when the suffix begins with a vowel (ed, ing, and er). Thesingle consonant blocks make this doubling possible.

Students learn that the suffix able transforms a verb into an adjective,and the suffix ly transforms an adjective into an adverb. They thenlearn that a verb combined with “able” can be further transformed intoan adverb by adding ly to form verb-able-ly (e.g., comfortably).Grasping all these concepts can be readily visually checked byconfirming that the correct color blocks are assembled in the correctorder, without necessarily reading the blocks or having to writeanything. Spelling variations, including dropped e, are included on thesame block as the complete word to make studying the rules manageable.For instance, like and lik, and live and liv, are paired on theirrespective blocks. Students also review the “magic” e spelling rule.

Students learn the effects of the different prefixes, preferablystarting with the set in, im, and un, when combined with English baseword blocks, such as fair, kind, safe, and lock. Greek and Latin rootword blocks may be introduced at this time, showing the students theeffect of combining two bound morphemes, such as in- and -vert. Studentslearn the meaning of the various prefixes, such as un means not.Students combine the prefix re block with base and root word blocks,learning to generalize from the context that re means again. Otherprefixes and suffixes can be added to the study. Students can also learnthe meaning of the Greek and Latin root word blocks from their contextand learn how the roots can be combined with many prefixes and suffixesto form new words, with a meaning that can be determined, because ofwhat those skilled in this art call “derivational constancy,” from themeaning of the subparts.

To help synthesize all the various exercises, students combine thedifferent prefixes, base words, root words, and suffixes to make wordfamilies. Word families are made visually clear because of thecolor-coding of the blocks; this, in turn, makes spelling patternseasier to identify and remember.

Sentence-Construction Kit

The sentence-construction kit builds on the skills learned from usingthe earlier kits. As seen in FIG. 10, this kit has twelve types ofblocks: noun blocks 220, noun ending blocks 320, pronoun blocks 230,verb blocks 240 (including verb ending blocks 330), adjective blocks250, adjective ending blocks 260, adverb blocks 270, preposition blocks280, conjunction blocks 290, interjection blocks 300, and punctuationblocks 310. As the amount of information on a block's side increases(e.g., the length of word increases), the length of the block increases.All these blocks have a female end and an opposite, male end.

In the preferred embodiment, the noun blocks 220 are a color 226, suchas green. The noun ending blocks 320, such as or, er, es, s, ment, tion,sion, ion, es, ness, and ing, are also the first color 226. The nounblocks each generally have four different nouns on the four sides. Thenoun ending blocks 320 each generally have four different noun endingson the four sides.

The pronoun blocks 230 are a second color 236 related to the color 226of the noun blocks, such as light green, and each generally has fourdifferent pronouns, selected from I, he, her, him, his, it, its, me, my,she, our, ours, we, who, you, us, their, them, they, theirs, which,your, yours, and what, on the four sides. The following table provides afew examples of noun and pronoun blocks. Side 1 Side 2 Side 3 Side 4Noun Block 1 air bat boy car Noun Block 2 cat Dad dad day Noun Block 3dog end eye fun Noun Block 4 hen man men Mrs. Noun Block 5 Mom mom Mr.mitt Noun Block 6 baseball birthday children hamburger Noun Block 7 ballbird book city Pronoun Block 1 His his her Her Pronoun Block 2 I us itsme Pronoun Block 3 my My Our our

The verb blocks 240 are a third color 246, such as yellow. The verbending blocks 330, such as n, ing, ed, and s, are also the third color.Each verb block generally has four different verbs on the four sides,but the different verbs may include present and past tense or plural andsingular forms of an irregular verb on any given block. Thus, forinstance, a block may have: ride, rode, tell and told; or know, knew,leave, and left; or, am, is, are, and be; or sing, sang, sung, and afourth verb, such as thank, which is not irregular.

The adjective blocks 250 are a fourth color 256, such as red. Theadjective ending blocks 260, such as er and est, are also the fourthcolor 256. Each adjective block generally has four different adjectiveson its four sides. One adjective ending block carries er and est twiceon its four sides, while other adjective endings, such as able, ible,ous, and ious are on another block. Special adjectives, known asarticles, including a, an, and the, are included on a block of anothercolor, such as pink, that is related to the fourth color.

The adverb blocks 270 are a fifth color 276, such as orange. Each adverbblock generally has four different adverbs on its four sides.

The preposition blocks 280 are a sixth color 286, such as blue. Eachpreposition block generally has four different prepositions on its foursides. The prepositions may be selected from the group, as, at, by, for,in, of, off, on, out, to, up, in, above, about, after, along, away,down, even, from, into, near, next, with, since, upon, over, until,across, against, around, under, between, during, before, toward,without, and through. In the preposition blocks, as with all blocks inthis set, blocks may include blank sides so that users can choose otherprepositions and write them with a permanent or dry erase marker.

The conjunction blocks 290 are a seventh color 296, such as violet. Eachconjunction block generally has different conjunctions on its sides. Theconjunctions may be selected from the group and, but, for, if, or, so,and, but, because, while, and yet.

The interjection blocks 300 are an eighth color 306, such as turquoise.Each interjection block generally has different interjections on itssides. The interjections may be selected from the group: Gee, No, Oh,Wow, Hey, Yes, OK, and Aha. Because interjections generally startsentences, it is preferred that the interjections have initial capitalletters.

The punctuation blocks 310 are a ninth color 316, such as white. Eachpunctuation block generally has different punctuation marks on itssides. The punctuation marks may be selected from the group: comma,period, exclamation mark, question mark, quotation mark, openingparenthesis, closing parenthesis, semicolon, colon, single quotationmark (or apostrophe), double quotation mark, and hyphen or dash.

Examples of Use of the Sentence-Construction Kit

One component of grammar is understanding the structure of sentences.FIG. 11 illustrates blocks from the sentence-construction kit assembledto form two related sentences. Sentence combining and expandingactivities have a strong tradition in language instruction and have beenshown to improve some students' writing. Using the sentence-constructionkit allows students to learn the formal structures of language whileanalyzing, combining, organizing, elaborating, and rearranging sentencesusing manipulable materials rather than the more tedious and boringwriting and rewriting. The colored blocks enable easy identification ofnouns, verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech, and make instructionin the various formal sentence structures easy. In addition, studentscan combine words in interesting and unusual ways.

Using this kit, students can learn to recognize nouns and verbs. Thesnap-fitting and color-coding features will help them learn toidentify—and separate into component parts—simple, compound, andcomplete subjects and predicates in sentences. They will also learn toidentify sentence fragments by the absence of certain colored blocks.The color-coding feature will help students identify action verbs andtheir helpers and differentiate the helping verbs from linking verbs.They will learn about punctuation, prepositional phrases, adjectives,adverbs, interjections, and conjunctions. In short, using this kit willallow the formation of essentially any type of sentence, and willfacilitate drill work in all the various types of grammatical work soimportant to writing readable sentences.

EXAMPLE 11 Recognizing Nouns

Students use only the noun blocks, which are sorted out by color. First,students can practice their classifying skills by sorting the nounblocks by their initial sounds, just as they did with the picture blocksin the alphabet and phoneme awareness kit. As they master this sorting,they can sort by terminal sounds, and by long and short vowel sounds.

Having acquired familiarity with some of the words on the noun blocksand refreshed their sorting skills, students can then sort the nounblocks by type of noun. Thus, students may sort the noun blocks by wordsthat refer to people, to things, to ideas or concepts, and to places. Asthey sort, the teacher explains that people, things, ideas, and placesare words called “nouns”.

To reinforce this exercise, students play a noun connection game. Inthis game, a first student selects a noun on a noun block and gives itto a second student. The second student finds a second noun block thatis related to the first noun block, snap-fits it to the first block, andexplains how the two nouns are related. For example, if the first nounwas boy, the second noun might be dad because the boy has a dad. Thisexercise, and the building of the “noun train,” continues until theblocks are used up or the students can no longer relate the two touchingnouns to each other.

EXAMPLE 12 Recognizing Verbs

Students use only the verb and verb ending blocks, which are selected bycolor (e.g., yellow). The teacher begins by showing the students anobservable action verb on a verb block, such as the word eat. Thestudent verbalizes a sentence using the verb. Using this sentence, theteacher explains that the word eat describes an action and that actionwords are called verbs. After discussing that the verb eat describes anobservable action, students look through the yellow verb blocks forother observable action verbs, thus reinforcing the concept of actionverbs.

Next, the teacher shows the students a verb block with an action verbthat cannot be observed, such as the word think. The teacher explainsthat this is also a verb although it cannot be seen—someone cannot seesomeone else think. Students then should look through the verb blocksfor other non-observable action verbs.

Next, the teacher shows the students a verb block with an irregular pasttense and present tense form of a verb, e.g., ride and rode. Thestudents use these verbs in a sentence. The teacher explains that theseare present and past tense forms of the verb “to ride” and furtherexplains that the present is what is happening now and the past is whathas happened. Students then look through the verb blocks and identifyother blocks with present and past tenses of verbs.

Students locate their verb ending blocks, or blocks with ed on one side.The students and teacher discuss what connecting ed to present tenseforms of regular verbs does to the verb. To reinforce this, studentscombine various verb blocks with ed to make the past tense forms. When astudent tries to make a regular past tense form of a verb with anirregular past tense (e.g., “maked”), the concept of irregular pasttenses should be introduced, along with pointing out that the irregularpast tense (“made”) is already on the block.

To reinforce these exercises, students can play a verb connection game,much like the noun connection game described earlier, but linking theverbs together with an explanation.

One of skill in the art will recognize that the invention can besimilarly used to introduce and examine the concepts of adjective andadverb recognition.

EXAMPLE 13 Making Sentences

This example uses the entire sentence-construction kit.

Initially, students form various sentences from the blocks in theirkits, including a period at the end of the sentences. Students may notbe able to start their sentences with a capital letter, so the teachercan suggest using self-stick notes on cubes or using a dry erase markerto write the word on the blank cube.

EXAMPLE 14 Identifying Complete Subjects and Complete Predicates

Then, the teacher forms a sentence from the blocks, such as “My dad gota fish for me.” Using the preferred color scheme, the following tableshows the color of each block. My dad got a fish for me . light greengreen yellow pink green blue light green whiteThe teacher then breaks the assembled sentence into two parts: “My dad”and “got a fish for me.” The teacher explains that “My dad” is thecomplete subject of the sentence because it tells who or what is doingsomething and that “got a fish for me” is the complete predicate becauseit tells what the subject did.

The students then take their assembled sentences and separate them intocomplete subjects and complete predicates. Each student explains why thesentence was split in the selected location. By the end of thisexercise, students should have noticed that subjects do not have themain verb of the sentence (a yellow block) while predicates always havethe main verb. Physically splitting and joining the blocks is animportant characteristic of this invention.

EXAMPLE 15 Identifying Simple Subjects and Simple Predicates

The concept of a simple subject and simple predicate can now beintroduced, using a sentence such as “The happy children play in therain.” First, the blocks are split so as to form two parts: “The happychildren” and “play in the rain.” After identifying the complete subjectand the complete predicate, the children and play blocks can be isolatedand identified as the simple subject and the simple predicate. Theteacher explains that the simple parts tell who does what, without anyadditional information.

Further drill work involves making more sentences, including those withcompound subjects and predicates, and breaking them down, first intocomplete subjects and complete predicates, and then into simple subjectsand simple predicates. An additional exercise entails making severalsentences, breaking them up and mixing them up, then having studentsidentify which subjects and predicates go together.

EXAMPLE 16 Identifying Complete Sentences and Sentence Fragments

The teacher makes the sentence fragment “The man and the duck.” Theteacher asks the students if there is a yellow block in the sentence andwhat sort of words are on yellow blocks. The teacher instructs thestudents that every sentence must have a verb, and that, therefore, allsentences made with the sentence-construction kit will have a yellowblock. The students and teacher complete the sentence with a verb block.Using color-coding is an important feature of the present invention.

The teacher (or students) makes the sentence “We went to the store andgot a dog.” The sentence is then broken into “We went to the store” and“and got a dog.” The students identify “We went to the store” as asentence and “and got a dog” as a sentence fragment because it has nosubject even though it has a verb. The students learn that a completesentence requires both a subject and a verb.

EXAMPLE 17 Identifying Basic Sentence Patterns

In this exercise, the teacher makes the sentence “Children play.” usingthe blocks. The teacher and students identify the colors and types ofblocks used to make this sentence, which, using the preferred colors,will be a green noun block and a yellow verb block. The students learnthat the noun-verb (N-V) pattern is the simplest sentence pattern. Toreinforce this, the students form other noun-verb combinations, whichmay make sensible or nonsense sentences.

The teacher then adds the article block having the word “The” to thesentence, forming the new sentence “The children play.” The teacherinforms the students that “the” as well as “a” and “an” are a specialkind of adjective known as an article—which is why the blocks are pink,but that articles do not change the basic sentence type. Thus, thesentence pattern is still noun-verb.

The teacher then adds the noun block having the word “ball” to the endof the sentence, forming the new sentence “The children play ball.” Thechildren identify the colors and types of blocks used to form thissentence and learn a second sentence pattern: noun-verb-noun (N-V-N).

The teacher forms a new sentence from blocks: “Dad is funny.” Thechildren identify the colors and types of blocks used to form thissentence and learn a second sentence pattern: noun-verb-adjective(N-V-Adj.).

Students then practice forming sentences of the three different patternsusing the blocks. The teacher assesses students' understanding of theconcept by looking at the colors of the blocks, and examines the varioussentences for content. Ease of assessment is an important feature of thepresent invention.

EXAMPLE 18 Identifying Types of Sentences

The teacher forms the sentence “Which dog jumped over the wall?” fromthe blocks. The students and teacher discuss the different blocks usedin this sentence and specifically identify the punctuation block ? used.The teacher tells the students that a question is a sentence asking forinformation.

The teacher uses the blocks to form the sentence “The black dog jumpedover the wall.” The teacher and students identify the absence of aquestion mark. The teacher tells the students that this sentence is astatement and a statement is a sentence giving information.

The students are divided into pairs. Each student then forms questionsusing their blocks. The teacher checks their questions for form andcontent. The other student in each pair uses blocks to form a statementthat answer the question. The questioning and answering may be repeatedas necessary. The converse may also be done, in which first a statementis formed and then the other student turns it into a question. Thestatement-forming and questioning may be repeated as necessary.

The sentence “Stop doing that” is formed from the blocks and used tointroduce the concept of a type of sentence known as a “command.” Thestudents and teacher attach, and discuss the effect of, two forms ofpunctuation: a period and an exclamation point. They read each form ofthe sentence aloud, changing the urgency with the tone of their voice.Students build other commands, such as “Bring my book.” and “Close thedoor.” and proceed in similar way to judge the effect of an exclamationpoint on meaning. Students will continue to discuss the differencesbetween commands ending with periods and exclamatory statements that endwith exclamation points.

Students then form a sentence in the form of a statement, such as “Dadread this book.” They identify the basic pattern (noun-verb-noun, inthis case) and then turn the sentence into the command: “Read thisbook.” Students discuss the basic pattern of the command sentences,where the subject is understood as “you.” The pattern is written(you)-verb or (you)-verb-noun. Students can also be shown how the word“please” is used to transform the commands into requests.

The students are divided into pairs. Each student then forms questions,commands, requests, and exclamatory statements using their blocks. Theteacher checks their sentences for form and content. The other studentin each pair uses the same blocks and others to form a related, butdifferent form of, sentence. These steps may be repeated as necessary.Throughout, periods and exclamations points are used, and oral emphasisis appropriately provided.

EXAMPLE 19 Using Adjectives and Adverbs

In this exercise, students learn the appropriate use of adjectivesthrough sentence expansion. The blocks are used to form the sentence“The man saw a duck.” First, the noun concept is reviewed and studentsidentify the noun blocks by color and definition. Students then modifythe sentence by adding the adjective block with the word big on it,forming the sentence “The man saw a big duck.” Students identify theadjective blocks by color. The teacher explains that adjectives addinformation about nouns and pronouns and are words describing nouns andpronouns.

Students then use the snap-fitting feature of the blocks to easilymodify the sentence by adding the happy adjective block, forming thesentence “The happy man saw a big duck.” They identify both adjectives(as well as the article blocks that are a related color) and which nouneach adjective describes. Students further quickly and easily modify thesentence to read “The large man saw a big duck and was happy.” Theyidentify the three adjective blocks and which noun each adjectivedescribes. This introduces the concept that nouns and the adjectivesthat modify them do not need to be adjacent. The quick and easymodifications are an important feature of the present invention.

Students continue in this by forming their own sentences from theblocks, using adjectives generously. One exercise could involve a firststudent forming a simple noun-verb-noun statement from the blocks andpassing it to the next student, who adds an adjective. The sentenceblocks are passed until time is up, everyone has had a turn, or theideas are used up. Then, the sentence blocks may be quickly and easilyrearranged so that the adjectives modify different nouns. Theconsequences of the rearrangements on sentence meaning are alsoconsidered.

EXAMPLE 20 Using Conjunctions

Students form the sentence “My brother hit the ball.” from the blocks.They then add blocks forming the phrase “and ran quickly”, resulting in“My brother hit the ball and ran quickly.” The adverb block isidentified, along with the other block colors. The conjunction block(preferably violet in color) is discussed as is its effect of joining orconnecting two parts of a sentence. Students substitute blocks formingthe phrase “but ran slowly” for the blocks “and ran quickly” and discussthe effect on meaning and why using the conjunction block “but” requiresan adverb change. Students learn that and, but, and or (nor) arecoordinating conjunctions.

Students form the sentence “If the man sometimes saw the duck, he washappy.” from the blocks. After identifying the various blocks, includingthe violet “if” conjunction block, students discuss that a conjunctiondoes not have to be between the two phrases it joins or connects. Thistype of conjunction is called a subordinating conjunction because theclauses it joins are not equal, one depends on, or is subordinate to,the other. Students may rearrange the sentence so that it reads “He washappy if the man sometimes saw the duck.” and discuss the meaning ofthis new sentence. Students then sort out the conjunction blocks andread all of the conjunctions: and, but, for, if, or, so, and, but,because, and while. Students form sentences using the differentconjunctions and examine the various locations and uses of theconjunction. Then, students replace one conjunction with anotherconjunction—changing the rest of the sentence as necessary so thesentence makes sense.

As another exercise, a first student forms a simple noun-verb-nounstatement from the blocks and passes it to the next student, who adds anew phrase or clause with a conjunction. The student writes down the newsentence. The sentence blocks are passed, with each student changing theconjunction and other words as necessary and writing down the resultingsentence (keeping the original noun and verb blocks as long as possible)until time is up, everyone has had a turn, or the ideas are exhausted.Then, the changes in the sentence over time are reviewed and the effectsof conjunctions on content are considered.

EXAMPLE 21 Other Uses

As can be seen from the foregoing examples, the universally connectableblocks are extremely versatile. One of skill in the art will recognizethat they can be similarly used to introduce and examine the concept ofcompound subjects and compound objects, compound predicates, compoundverbs, coordinating conjunctions; the use of commas to separate longindependent clauses, subordinating conjunctions; the use of commas in aseries and after long introductory phrases and clauses; subject-verbagreement; the nature of pronouns including singular and possessivepronouns and pronoun-verb agreement; subject-verb agreement; identifyingdifferent sorts of adjectives (e.g., article, quality, quantity) andmaking adjectives from verbs by adding the suffixes “able” or “ible”;identifying prepositions and working with prepositional phrases; usingsingle, plural, and possessive noun forms; adding the suffix “ness” toadjectives to make nouns; making verb tense changes, including thepresent and past tenses, the future tense with “will” and the presentprogressive tense (“is [verb]ing”); use of linking verbs (e.g., looks,feels, seems, am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, become, feel,grow, look, seem, smell) to express a state or condition of the subjectlinked to a noun or to an adjective that describes the subject; use ofhelping verbs to help the main verb express time (e.g., am, is, are,was, were, be, been, do, did, have, has, had, will, can, may, might,could, should, would); using comparative and superlative adjectives(including the addition of -er and -est suffixes and many/more/most andgood/better/best); identifying adverbs by kind (place, time, manner, anddegree); identifying pronouns used as subject or as object; usingquotation marks to signify direct speech and correctly using punctuationin relation to quotation marks; and using common interjections inwriting; using parentheses, colons and semicolons.

EXAMPLE 22 Primers

The universally connectable blocks may also be used in conjunction withone or more primers. Primers, or books that are designed to teachchildren various, selected aspects of reading, such as letters, voweland consonant sounds, combinations of vowels and consonants, rimes,parts of speech, and punctuation, are known in the art. However, thenovel method for teaching and learning reading described here combinesprimers and blocks in ways that were previously not known. Each primer,itself designed to teach a selected reading skill, has been developedwith color-coded letters or other symbols that correspond to the blocks'color coding. The primers provide stories or display words, sentences orphrases and corresponding illustrations, together with manipulative(hands-on) exercises that involve the blocks. Thus, using the primersand blocks together provides both a literary and a manipulative,hands-on, tactile learning context to the teaching and learning ofreading. Using a primer together with block-based hands-on activitiesdesigned to teach and reinforce the reading skills covered by the primerprovides the reader with a better understanding of the learning conceptsand strengthens reading skills in a uniquely powerful and effectivefashion. This effective and powerful improvement over traditionalprimer-based teacing of reading skills derives from the lasting memoryof the physical act of snapping the blocks together, linked with boththe reading skill being taught and the content or story line of theprimer. This experience is different from merely reading symbols on apage. The lesson is “burned in” twice and more effectively, with twokinds of experiences and memories (reading and hands-on learning).

The primers are different from the earlier-described flipbooks becausethe primers teach reading skills with letters, pictures, words and/orstories in conjunction with the blocks whereas, the flipbooks are mereinstruction guides with one or two page-long activities or exercises fordrilling the user in how to use the blocks without literaryreinforcement or story lines, lacking the experience of reading a“book.”

The primers and universally connectable blocks are designed to be usedtogether (and have been integrated) to teach and learn reading. Eachprimer contains selected intelligible reading units composed of readingindicia that correspond to the reading indicia found on the faces of theblocks. Each block has a single type of reading indicia. The selectedreading indicia in the primer are the same color as the blocks that havethe corresponding reading indicia.

In one method of using the primers and blocks, an intelligible readingunit is selected from the primer after the child has completely orpartially read the primer. The user identifies the reading indiciacomprising the selected intelligible reading unit and selects a firstand a second block from the group of universally connectable blockshaving the identified reading indicia. The selected blocks are connectedby the user so that the connected blocks are horizontally adjacent andthe selected indicia-bearing faces of each block are visible from thesame direction. To determine whether the indicia appear together to formthe selected intelligible reading unit, the color or selected indicia ofthe connected blocks are viewed. If the selected intelligible readingunit is not formed, then one or more of the connected blocks aredisconnected. One or more blocks are rotated or the blocks are connectedin a different order or different blocks are used, resulting indifferent indicia-bearing faces being adjacent to each other. Other waysof using the primers and blocks may also be envisioned.

In one example, a primer focuses on the “short a” vowel sound. Such aprimer features several words having the “short a” vowel in the contextof a story. As seen in FIGS. 12-13, the primer provides a literarycontext for “short a” vowel words and coordinates the teaching andlearning of, for example, the “short a” vowel words “Rags” and “sad” inthe context of an engaging story and hands-on activities performed afterreading the story. Providing a foundation for integrated hand-onlearning activities involving the blocks is accomplished by coloring theletter “a” in the primer to match the color of the “a” blocks. In thisexample, the primer highlights the letter “a” in the corresponding colorof the blocks, e.g., red. In addition, as shown in FIGS. 14-15, theprimer provides a range of manipulative activities utilizing wordsfeatured in the primer to reinforce or extend the child's learningaccomplished by reading the primer.

As seen in FIG. 14, once the story is read, the primer encourages theuser with icon 520 to find blocks bearing selected reading indicia thatcan be used to spell the “short a” vowel words (intelligible readingunits) used in the primer. Icon 522 then instructs the user to connectthe blocks bearing the selected reading indicia so that the connectedblocks form these words. Reading comprehension of the primer's story isthen tested by questions 540 relating to the words formed by theconnected blocks. Many other questions and hands-on activities with theblocks are also possible.

FIG. 15 illustrates how the primer can be used in connection with theblocks to teach a user to form sentences by properly assembling blocksbearing selected reading indicia, first into words and then into asentence. First, icon 520 encourages the user to locate blocks bearingselected reading indicia. Icon 522 then instructs the user to connectthe blocks to form words. The words 544, 546, 548, 550, 552, 554, 556are found in the primer; thus, the hand-on activity directly reinforcesthe experience of reading the primer and mastering the lesson. Theprimer then provides instructions 542 which guide the user to furthermanipulate the assembled blocks to build a sentence, write the sentence,and draw a picture about the sentence. These additional activitiesreinforce the relationship of the primer's reading indicia andintelligible reading units to the blocks bearing the reading indicia andassembled into intelligible reading units. In addition, the activitiesreinforce the plot because they are directed to the actions in the storyand reinforce the very experience of reading (decoding symbolsrepresenting language). Each primer is oriented to a particular readingskill so the activities are designed to strengthen the child'scapabilities in developing that skill. Other languages or content areascan be taught using primers.

Other activities to use the primers and blocks together can be readilydeveloped for the beginning reader. For instance, the “short a” soundcan be further studied by asking the user to find blocks, assemble wordsused in the primer and determine the aural relationship among the wordsby saying the words. The user can tactilely practice spelling words usedin the primer by assembling the blocks corresponding to the words to bespelled. These activities provide practice with word- andsentence-building, rhyming, spelling, and writing. As a result of usingthe color-coded, interlocking blocks to represent sounds, constructwords, and create sentences, the user learns that there are predictablerelationships between letters and spoken sounds.

Similar color-coded primers that are designed to work with theuniversally connectable blocks bearing reading indicia are used todevelop and enhance other types of reading or phonics skills, includingbut not limited to the following: representing sounds, recognizingwords, learning to spell words, spelling new words, creating sentences,and increasing reading comprehension.

In another example, a primer used in connection with the alphabet andphonemic awareness kit for the beginning reader has picturescorresponding to the pictures shown on the picture blocks. Thus, forexample, such a primer for the letter b has pictures of a ball, banana,bicycle, and book, along with the corresponding word. As seen in FIGS.16-18, at least some of the pages of the primer include a lettercomponent 501 (in this case “Bb”), picture components 502, 504, 506 (inthis case, a banana 502 in FIG. 16, a bat 504 in FIG. 17, and a book 506in FIG. 18), and word components 503, 505, 507 (in this case, “banana”503 in FIG. 16, “bat” 505 in FIG. 17, and “book” 507 in FIG. 18).

The primer reinforces the relationship of the letters, pictures, andwords in a literary context, i.e. by showing how they are used to tell astory. And, by highlighting the letter b throughout the text, bothstanding alone and within words, in the color corresponding to the colorof the consonant blocks, e.g., blue, the primer also reinforces therelationship of the letters and words to the blocks. As seen in FIGS.19-20, the primer has both tactile and visual activities to teach andlearn reading.

Thus, FIG. 19A shows a way to teach the concept of alphabet and phonemicawareness with respect to the consonant “b” with activities that linkthe blocks and primer. The first step is to read the primer. All theactivities follow the reading exercise. Reading “ball” on thatparticular page is the primary objective of the primer. The laterhands-on exercises are a means to an end of teaching reading. Theprimer, using a “find it” icon 520, encourages the user to find blocksas represented by block icons 508, 509, 510 that have identified readingindicia thereon, and that correspond to the reading indicia depicted inthe primer (e.g., “B”, “b”, and a ball). The “build it” icon 522 thenencourages the user to connect the actual blocks in the same order sothat the connected blocks as represented by connected blocks icon 523are horizontally adjacent and the selected indicia-bearing faces of eachblock are visible from the same direction. The user can then view theconnected blocks and compare them to the illustrated connected blocksicon 523 to determine whether the indicia form the selected intelligiblereading unit. Then, as indicated by the “say it” icon 524, the userviews the selected intelligible reading unit as assembled on theconnected blocks and reads it aloud to reinforce aurally what has beenlearned in both a visual and a manipulative context.

As seen in FIG. 19B, the primer guides the user to change or replace theblock 510 bearing the “ball” reading indicium depicted in the connectedblocks icon 523 with a block bearing a different reading indicium (e.g.,the “banana” block as pictured by the banana picture block icon 526).Replacing “ball” with “banana” results in the assembly of a differentintelligible reading unit (e.g., B b banana). Then, as indicated in theprinted instruction “Say it.”, the user views the newly assembled blocksbearing the different intelligible reading unit and reads it aloud toagain reinforce aurally what has been learned in both a visual and ahands-on context. The primer guides the user to repeat the manipulativestep of disconnecting and connecting blocks several times, which blocksreflect the different picture components that were used in the primerand that correspond to the different reading indicia used on the blocks.Thus, the user disconnects the block as represented by the block icon510 from the other connected blocks represented by icons 508, 509, andeither rotates the block represented by block icon 510 or selects adifferent block as represented by block icons 526, 528, 530, and thenconnects the selected block to the connected blocks so that the newcombination of connected blocks form different intelligible readingunits.

As seen in FIGS. 20A-20B, simpler intelligible reading units can also beassembled. Thus, as seen in FIG. 20A, the primer guides the user withicons 520, 522, 524 to assemble a two-block intelligible reading unit“Bb” as represented by icon 532 consisting of blocks represented byicons 508, 509. The primer shows this by connecting block icon 508having the “B” reading indicium and block icon 509 having the “b”reading indicium. Similarly, in FIG. 20B, a two-block intelligiblereading unit is represented by icon 534 which shows blocks depicting thepictures “book” and “banana”, consisting of block icons 530, 526, withthe “book” picture and “banana” reading indicia, respectively.

Other methods of using the primers and blocks enhance the user's readingskills and test the user's reading comprehension. For instance, the usercould be asked to identify other pictures in the primer that start withthe same letter by placing a block having the correct letter (or otherreading indicium) on the picture. Or the user can find blocks having thereading indicia that would permit assembly of an entire word and icon,creating the primer's text in blocks. Other similar activities are alsoreadily developed.

These exercises in which the reader locates b picture blocks and Bbconsonant blocks provide the user with opportunities to manipulate theblocks to discover and reinforce (or possibly extend) the conceptstaught by the primer, including the concept that words that start withthe same sound often start with the same letter.

The method described provides opportunities for an instructor to performreading assessment and diagnostics. A correct block assembly, i.e., ablock assembly that arranges the blocks in the manner directed by theprimer, visibly demonstrates that the student understands the primer andthe reading skill taught by that primer. An incorrect block assemblydemonstrates a possible lack of complete understanding and suggests theneed for further lessons. Advantageously, the assessment and diagnosticscan be accomplished by someone without teaching skills, such as ateacher's aide or parent, as well as by a teacher. The instructor canconveniently assess mastery of a specific primer by several studentssimultaneously. The activities allow the instructor to visually detectif the students comprehend the lesson. For instance, a student may havememorized that the “book” icon starts with a “b” sound, but fail tounderstand that “ball” also starts with the “b” sound. The activitieswill expose such specific gaps in a student's comprehension. The simple,easy-to-understand nature of the hands-on activities allows theinstructor to delegate the lesson to others, either in the classroom orin “take home” exercises. The simplicity of the method greatly aids theinstructor by allowing flexibility in delivering the lesson. Indeed, bydelaying or repeating the hands-on activities, the method allowsrepeated reinforcement of the lessons learned in reading the primer andthe assessment of retention of skills long after completion of thereading exercise.

It should be recognized that, while the invention has been described inrelation to a preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art may developa wide variation of structural details without departing from theprinciples of the invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are to beconstrued to cover all equivalents falling within the scope and spiritof the invention.

1. An apparatus for teaching and learning reading comprising: (a) aplurality of removably connectable blocks, each block having at leasttwo faces, said at least two faces oriented perpendicularly to eachother; and (b) reading indicia on each of said at least two faces ofeach of said blocks.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of saidblocks has a female end and a male end, and wherein said male end of oneblock can be frictionally engaged by said female end of another block.3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein at least two faces on each of saidblocks has a unique reading indicia.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1 whereinsaid reading indicia are selected from the indicia group consisting ofthe following members: a vowel, a consonant, a picture, an initialconsonant, a rime, a “magic” e, a consonant combination, a vowelcombination, an affix, a root word, a noun, a noun ending, a pronoun, averb, a verb ending, an adjective, an adjective ending, an adverb, apreposition, a conjunction, an interjection, and a punctuation mark. 5.The apparatus of claim 4 wherein each block has reading indicia selectedfrom a single member of the indicia group of claim
 4. 6. The apparatusof claim 5 wherein said blocks are colored, each block of a singlecolor, and wherein blocks having reading indicia of the same member ofthe indicia group are of like color.
 7. The apparatus of claim 1 and atray for holding one or more of said blocks, said tray having at leastone channel sufficiently large to hold two or more blocks.
 8. Theapparatus of claim 1 wherein said reading indicia are selected from thegroup consisting of consonants, vowels, and pictures, and wherein thereis at least one block including pictures of things commonly described bywords beginning with a same consonant and at least one block includingpictures of things commonly described by words beginning with a samevowel.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein: the blocks bearingconsonants are of a first color, each block bearing a selected consonanton four faces; the blocks bearing vowels are of a second color, eachblock bearing a selected vowel on four faces; the blocks bearingpictures commonly described by words beginning with a vowel of a fourthcolor similar in hue to said second color.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9wherein the blocks are of similar size.
 11. The apparatus of claim 1wherein said reading indicia are selected from the group consisting ofconsonants and rimes.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the blocksbearing consonants are of a first color and the blocks bearing rimes areof a second color.
 13. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said readingindicia are selected from the group consisting of prefixes, suffixes,and root words.
 14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein blocks bearing atleast two prefix indicia are of a first color, the blocks bearing atleast two suffix indicia are of a second color, and the blocks bearingat least two root word indicia are of a third color.
 15. The apparatusof claim 14 wherein said root word indicia are selected from the groupconsisting of Latin/Greek root word indicia and English root wordindicia, and the blocks bearing at least two Latin/Greek root wordindicia are of one hue of the third color and blocks bearing at leasttwo English root word indicia are of a second hue of the third color.16. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said reading indicia are selectedfrom the group consisting of consonants, vowels, and “magic” e's. 17.The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the blocks bearing consonants are afirst color, the blocks bearing vowels are of a second color, and theblocks bearing “magic” e's are a third color.
 18. The apparatus of claim1 wherein said reading indicia are selected from the group consisting ofconsonants, vowels, “magic” e's, consonant combination, vowelcombinations, and advanced rimes.
 19. The apparatus of claim 18 whereinthe blocks bearing consonants are a first color, the blocks bearingvowels are of a second color, the blocks bearing “magic” e's are a thirdcolor, the blocks bearing consonant combinations are a fourth color, theblocks bearing vowel combinations are a fifth color, and the blocksbearing advanced rimes are a sixth color.
 20. The apparatus of claim 19,wherein (a) the consonant-combination blocks include initial blendblocks, final blend blocks, word ending blocks, and consonant digraphblocks; and (b) the vowel-combination blocks include vowel digraphs,diphthongs, and r-controlled vowels.
 21. The apparatus of claim 1wherein said reading indicia are selected from the group consisting ofnouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions,interjections, and punctuation marks.
 22. The apparatus of claim 21wherein the group of said reading indicia further comprise noun endings,verb endings, and adjective endings.
 23. The apparatus of claim 21wherein the blocks bearing at least two noun indicia are a first color,the blocks bearing at least two pronoun indicia are a second colorrelated in hue to the first color, the blocks bearing at least two verbindicia are a third color, the blocks bearing at least two adjectiveindicia are a fourth color, the blocks bearing at least two adverbindicia are a fifth color, the blocks bearing at least two prepositionindicia are a sixth color, the blocks bearing at least two interjectionindicia are a seventh color, and the blocks bearing at least twopunctuation indicia are an eighth color.
 24. The apparatus of claim 23further comprising blocks bearing at least two noun ending indicia ofthe first color, blocks bearing at least two verb ending indicia of thethird color, and blocks bearing at least two adjective ending indicia ofthe fourth color.
 25. A group of universally connectable blocks forteaching and learning reading, wherein the group includes at least twoblocks of different colors, wherein each of said blocks comprises atleast three faces, all of said faces of each block bearing a type ofreading indicia, the color of the faces and the type of reading indiciabeing the same on all of said faces of any one block, and wherein allblocks of the same color have the same type of reading indicia and eachtype of reading indicia is assigned a unique color.
 26. A group ofuniversally connectable blocks for teaching and learning reading,wherein the group includes at least two blocks of different colors,wherein each of said blocks comprises at least three faces, all of saidfaces of each block bearing a type of reading indicia, the color of thefaces and the type of reading indicia being the same on all of saidfaces of any one block, and wherein all blocks of the same color havethe same type of reading indicia and each type of reading indicia isassigned a unique color, wherein reading is taught and learned using amethod comprising: a) selecting a first and a second block from saidgroup of universally connectable blocks, said selecting based solely onthe reading indicia or the color of the blocks; b) selecting anyindicium-bearing face of said first block and any indicium-bearing faceof said second block; c) connecting said first block and said secondblock so that the connected blocks are horizontally adjacent and theselected indicia-bearing faces of each block are visible from the samedirection; and d) viewing the color or selected indicia of saidconnected blocks to determine whether said indicia appear together toform an intelligible reading unit.